Not Just Commandos: Anti-Fascism, 1945–51

Abstract

The growth of fascism in Britain after 1945 meant that a whole number of different organisations were obliged to take sides. Political parties, community organisations and individual anti-fascists all took a stand. The vast majority of the non-fascist groups considered themselves to be anti-fascist, but the fact that they thought they were anti-fascist does not mean that they deserved the name. In this way, a large number of Conservative Party members found the ideas of fascism objectionable, but most Conservatives did nothing to oppose fascism. In practical terms there was a spectrum. At one end were the owners of the Conservative newspaper Truth, who gave an editorial post to the fascist, A. K. Chesterton. Nearer the middle was Winston Churchill, who had spent the early 1930s expressing his admiration for both Mussolini and Hitler. After 1945, he peppered his history of the Second World War with references suggesting that Communists, not Mosley, should have been interned in 1940.1 At the other end of the spectrum was Quentin Hogg, who maintained that Conservatives would find Mosley’s ideas disgusting, but would not believe in using the law to stop them.2 Of course, the Conservative Party was not fascist; its members were neither semi-fascists nor partial fascists, but nor were they antifascists. They did not act to stop fascism, but argued instead against those anti-fascists that aimed to stop Mosley from below, through demonstrations and campaigns at the street level. They even opposed those anti-fascists aiming to stop Mosley from above, through parliamentary delegations and changes to the law.